Lee's excellent fairytale
by ThalieXVII
Summary: Eleven years old Lee just got adopted by Heihachi Mishima... This should have been a chapter in my bigger story 'Lee Chaolan's (more or less) excellent life in the Mishima family' (near the end of chapter one)but since I know many people do not like when chapters are added after the whole story is finished, I put it as an independent story.


After Heihachi had found Lee, who was fighting some other kids in a backstreet in Shanghai, he had been impressed by him to the point of inviting that street kid to the restaurant before he decided to adopt him.

So Heihachi quickly took care of those procedures and after all was done and that Lee was now his official foster son, the limousine they both were in, arrived to Heihachi's hotel. The chauffeur opened the door and Heihachi told Lee, who was looking at him, waiting for his new father to get out from the car first:

"Get out. My assistant will take care of you. I'll be back in the evening."

"Huh… Okay… Thank you…" said Lee as he slightly bowed to his new father while getting out of the limousine. He didn't think his new adoptive father would go away that soon and he felt slightly lost… even somehow abandoned… Everything happened so fast… First after his fight, that strangely combed man appeared and asked him to come over. Then once near, the man grabbed him, forcefully brought him inside that restaurant where he almost threw him on a chair, then leaving him no time to eat his meal, he took him to his limousine to go somewhere to adopt him, then took him to that hotel before he quickly left him and went away…

But Lee didn't have time to feel lost or abandoned for long since once outside of the car, he saw a man looking really uptight who told him as he bowed to him:

"Welcome, young master."

Lee looked at the man with big eyes. He never had been called master before… That was so impressive! To show his politeness, he bowed as much as the man and said:

"Huh… Thank you…"

The man replied: "You do not have to bow as low as me, young master. You are the master. Bowing shows my reverence to you and your social rank."

Lee couldn't help looking impressed once more. My social rank? Wow! Yet he also remembered once more how he was dressed and his dirty clothes made him feel some embarrassment once more. He was not really part of that 'social rank'…

"Huh… Okay… Sorry…"

"You do not have to be sorry either, I am only teaching you etiquette."

"Huh… Okay…"

Lee thought he should shut up. Apart from 'Huh… Okay', he didn't know what to reply and it didn't look very intelligent… He really didn't know what to say, he was both extremely happy and excited while also extremely nervous and embarrassed at the same time… He was still very confused…

The man then told him to follow him to the hotel where they went toward the elevator. Lee was really excited; he had never been in an elevator before. And the tiny place, like the rest of the hotel he saw, looked so elegant! With mirrors and all shiny… But trying to not look like an excited kid and trying to have some dignity, he kept his excitement inside. Beside the mirrors also showed once again his ugly and dirty clothes and Lee slightly felt out of place once more… But still, it was fun to take the elevator… Once the elevator arrived to whatever floor they now were, (probably high since it took a while to get to it, thought Lee) the door opened and the man began walking in the gallery while Lee quickly followed him. Once more seeing the chandelier, the decorated walls and the luxurious carpet made Lee feel excitement but he told himself that it was stupid, those were only walls and floors so he shouldn't get excited over this… as he probably shouldn't get ashamed by his worn-out clothes… The man walked to a room and unlocked the door. He then showed the place to Lee as he stood aside.

"Your suite, young master."

Young master… Lee blushed in embarrassment as he entered the place with the man. So this is my apartment? thought Lee who didn't know the word suite but guessed it must mean apartment. A suite must mean a really luxurious and huge apartment since the place was looking like a palace or something… There was even a balcony at the far side or the grand salon…

"Here is the bathroom," said the assistant as he showed Lee the door to the bathroom. Looking inside, Lee gasped once more. The place was huge! The bathroom alone was as huge as his old apartment with his parents… And all looked so shiny, so clean, so… luxurious once more…

The man then showed Lee some elegant suits, all hung on the bathroom wall: "There are five sets of clothes, all different in size. Mishima-Sama told us your age and approximately your size but still… So once you took your bath, please try those clothes and put on the suit fitting you. We shall then know which size you wear."

"Huh… Okay. Thank you." answered Lee who slightly cursed himself for once more answering on such a stupid shy tone.

The man then told him, "Put your dirty clothes in that basket. The bath is already prepared and ready for you. I shall be in the gallery, once you are done, just call me by ringing the bell."

And politely bowing once more, he left before Lee could even get out of his stupor and bow as well to the man. Lee only bowed (once again too low) to the man once he was out of the bathroom.

Telling himself that he should not lose time admiring the place, Lee decided to take his bath. Beside his ugly and dirty clothes really didn't fit in here… He was happy to get rid of them, for good.

The bath was almost like a pool, it was so big… Lee enjoyed the water for a moment but wanting to feel fresh and worthy of the place, he took the soap and began washing himself, then took the shampoo to wash his hair… Taking a bath was such a great sensation… Lee never took a bath in his whole life, he always washed himself with the sink and never felt the sensation of being in the water… They had no bath at home, no pool in the area, so he never could feel what it was like to be in the water… That man, his new father, Heihachi Mishima was giving him so many opportunities… Lee couldn't help but feel overjoyed and moved by all of this… His eyes started to get wet and he began to silently cry, but in joy, a thing that he never did in his life before.

What was happening was probably real, not some kind of trap like he first feared when he saw Heihachi… That limousine… and now that 'suite'… The place was too beautiful to serve as some slave traffic ring or whatever… The man called him 'young master', they wouldn't do that to trap someone… He had seen some people who supposedly were child abductors and slavers and none of them looked like that… That Heihachi Mishima was probably a really nice person. Beside he had signed the adoption papers, he was okay… Yes, Heihachi Mishima was okay… He was taking him out of his misery, he was even more than okay… And he would be his new father… Lee really felt grateful and moved by what that man was doing for him… Lee then continued taking his bath and once he finished, he got out and began to try the many elegant suits that were hanging. Once he found the right one, he looked at his reflection in the mirror with a quite pleased air… He didn't know he could look so elegant… Taking many poses, gloating with pleasure, he gazed at his reflection for a long while, never stopping to smile until the assistant knocked on the bathroom door.

"Young master, are you okay? It has been a while. Do you need help?"

The knocking got Lee out of his wake dream and he answered:

"Huh… Yeah. Yes. I'm just… I have finished."

Lee then opened the door as the assistant made a small relieved expression. He thought the young boy had drowned in the whirlpool bath or something…

"You look very nice" said the assistant as Lee replied:

"Thank you."

Yet for a slight second, as the assistant was evaluating his clothes to see if everything was fine, Lee felt scrutinized and once more felt some distrust. What did that man, Heihachi Mishima, picked him for? Why find a poor boy that he has to teach everything, from language to manners, to become his son's companion? Couldn't he have found any other Japanese boy? But, if Heihachi wanted to do whatever bad things he would want to do to him, why invent a trap so elaborated? Heihachi Mishima was probably okay, Lee thought that he probably spent too much time worrying in the streets about the many dangers he could face, many of those he already faced somehow and he was still distrustful from those experiences. It probably was okay now…

The assistant had finished observing the suit and was now showing him some tie.

"I shall now put your tie. Clip ties exist but you also need to know how to put on a real one. Which one do you want? Red or blue?"

"… Blue."

As the assistant was explaining how the tie must be done, Lee felt his stomach growl. He hoped the assistant didn't hear but he realized he was beginning to be hungry again. With Heihachi taking him away so quickly from his meal at the restaurant in his eagerness to adopt him, he didn't have time to eat as he needed to… Yet could he eat now? Was there some hours for this? He didn't want to destroy any protocol or whatever…

Not saying anything about the growling stomach, the assistant told him: "You now have half an hour of free time before your Japanese teacher come. You can either look at the scenery from the balcony or play some pinball machine or watch television…"

"What? Already Japanese course today?" exclaimed Lee even if he didn't want to make any trouble or sound recalcitrant. But Heihachi just adopted him and everything was already organised? The assistant replied:

"We do not have any time to lose. You have to be fluent in Japanese once you meet young master Kazuya."

"Okay."

It somehow made sense. And at least he dropped the 'huh…' this time…

The assistant then added:

"Starting next week, all the personnel will have to speak only Japanese to you, no one will repeat in Chinese, so you must learn quickly as much as you can to be able to understand us."

"Huh… Okay…"

And what will happen if I can't? worriedly wondered Lee who didn't know if learning Japanese was easy or not… But he was the best of his class when he went to school, so he probably would do fine… Maybe… He never learned another language… He was good at school but the subjects he had begun to learn were not the same as learning languages… And he probably would also have to learn to write Japanese and he didn't even know much of the Chinese written language, from which he knew much of the Japanese written language have been taking from… After all, he quit school when his parents died when he was eight years old… For three years, he mostly learned street skills… Fighting… Finding food… Hiding… Even stealing… In the language area, he may have learned some bad words that some bums and drunkards would sometimes say… But he never said those dirty words, his mother didn't raise him to speak like this… She already wouldn't be proud that he now fought or stole almost each day but he was forced to do it, she probably would understand but he wasn't forced to speak vulgarly…

The assistant then told him: "Do you wish for something to eat right now? Some cookies? Some juice? Milk?

Lee was relieved; he didn't have to ask anything since the assistant was now offering it to him… He probably heard his stomach sooner…

"Hum, yes, please, cookies and milk… Thank you."

As he waited for the cookies and milk, sitting on the luxurious sofa, Lee still couldn't believe what just happened. Some hours ago, he was still rummaging through dumpsters to find food and now he was here, at a luxurious hotel, dressed like a businessman and waiting to be served cookies… It could not be true… Yet it seemed it was… Or, maybe he fell down during the fight and was actually unconscious? Maybe he hit his head falling from the dumpster and was dreaming all of this? Or the metal bar kid succeeded in hitting his head? Yet it seemed real… without seeming real. It probably was real… He would probably feel differently if he was dreaming… It probably was only the quickness of all those events and he still had to assimilate them… He would probably feel less strange tomorrow… Maybe even in some hours…

After his snack and Japanese lessons, Lee was ordered to go to bed. He would have wanted to see his new father again, to somehow tell him how grateful he was, even if he didn't know if he would now be too shy to address him, but the assistant told him that Heihachi would come back very late since he had many appointments tonight. So Lee went to bed as ordered. Beside the bed was so comfortable that, putting all distrust, worries or questioning aside, he fell asleep in ten minutes.

Later that night, Heihachi came back and asked his assistant:

"So, the kid did not give you too much trouble?"

Bowing reverently to his master, the assistant replied:

"Not at all, Mishima-Sama. He was very polite despite his lack of knowledge about etiquette and he did have some natural class in his bearing despite coming from a poor area. He knew how to behave with dignity and was eager to learn his lessons. I think you choose a very fine candidate to keep company to the young master Kazuya. His quiet attitude may calm the young master and give him a very nice friend."

"It's not really for this that I choose him but I'm glad he behaved well."

The assistant wondered why had Heihachi picked that boy from the slums if it wasn't to keep company to Kazuya and calm that terrible child from his never ending revolt, every servants knew how destructive and uncontrollable was the young master, but said nothing.

The next morning, Lee woke up. He realized that he was in a comfortable bed with comfortable pillows and a warm blanket. Far more comfortable than sleeping behind a dumpster or any other hiding places with nights that could be particularly cold while sleeping in tee-shirt. Remembering what happened yesterday, he suddenly remembered the kind man who gave him that, who even adopted him, and he felt once more gratitude toward him as he put on a smile.

Not wanting to look lazy and disappoint that new father, he got up from the bed but then wondered what to do. He couldn't get out of the room, what if he wasn't allowed to? But to be caught sleeping would make him look like a lazy boy and he didn't want to give a bad impression to that new father. So he got up and went to the balcony. There was one in the salon and one in the bedroom as well, Lee was really impressed. He didn't have any balcony where he lived with his family in their third floor apartment. They only had a very small window for the whole place and his grandmother was always in front of it, with the fan on since she would feel weak when it was too hot. Those apartments were so hot, especially during summer… The only times she left the place were during windy days when she would go with him to the park to fly his kite… He missed her… She was so kind… She didn't have much to offer him but just her kind gaze over him as she was watching him playing with his kite was making him feel joy… He knew she loved him very much… His beloved nainai (grandma)…

Thinking about his family while standing on the balcony, Lee suddenly missed them; his mother, his father, his paternal grandmother… even his paternal aunt whom he didn't know very much but still… And they were all dead now… because of that fire… All the screams he heard that night… when the building was on fire… All those people trapped in it… Quickly waking him, his parents had grabbed him and ordered him to get out of by the window since he was the only one small enough to get out by that hole. He didn't want to leave them but his mother told him they would join him soon by the stairs and that he had to jump for them to quickly take the stairs. So he jumped. Luckily, there was a roof on the first floor, so he somehow only landed from two floors high and then fell from the roof into the street, hurting his shoulder in the process but he was still alive. Yet his family never joined him… For hours, unable to go inside the building with the terrible fire raging and the firemen keeping people away, he waited with many others, who mostly were crying and in complete panic until he saw the firemen take out some people when they had finally taken care of the fire. All dead people. And among them, his parents, aunt and grandmother… Not able to stand the sight, Lee ran away, crying, and lost himself in the many backstreets of the area. He cried there for hours… For days… For months, he didn't come back to the place his apartment was located, he just couldn't… When he came back, the place was completely destroyed, there was nothing anymore.

As Lee felt bad remembering this, the wind suddenly began to blow softly, almost like a caress, and the young boy felt like if his parents were still here and telling him to not cry anymore… They were there in the wind, flying with the kites forever… Feeling some kind of sudden peace, he lifted his head. The sun was slightly appearing over the city, somehow promising a new day and a new life… From his 24th floor, he could see all the splendour of his native city in a way he never could before. From another point of view than the usual dirty backstreets, Shanghai was beautiful… Yes, he had to look at the future…

Suddenly a man opened the door to his chamber. It was the same servant as yesterday.

"You're already awake? Good."

"Huh… Yes. What must I do now?" asked Lee as he left the balcony to meet the man.

"Well, first, take off your pyjamas and put on your clothes, said the man while putting some elegant suit on the bed. I'll be outside, come out when you're finished dressing up."

So when the man got out, Lee quickly dressed himself then got out of the bedroom.

"Now follow me", said the man and Lee followed him to a large and elegant dining room. His new adoptive father was sitting at the far side of the long table and Lee was both happy to see him while feeling also nervous and shy in front of him.

Noticing him and now making a gesture for him to come, Heihachi then told Lee in Japanese:

-Ah, Lee! You look good in that suit! Far better than with your dirty rags! Now come here, boy!

Lee had to take a moment to understand what his new father told him in Japanese but he didn't take time to come toward him since he quickly understood the gesture Heihachi made. While trying to understand each words Heihachi said, Lee knew he would not have the guts to tell his new father that he was called Chaolan, not Lee, which was his family name. He would have to tell him but, later… Once near his new father, as politeness requested, he bowed very reverently to him. Heihachi once more asked him in Japanese:

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, Mishima-Sama," answered the young boy in Japanese as he bowed once more, this time remembering from his yesterday lesson what those words meant.

"Didn't your teacher teach you the word father? Otousama? You should call me like that now." said Heihachi suddenly speaking in Chinese.

"Huh… Yes, he did… I just felt… not worthy enough… right now…" answered Lee, a little embarrassed to also answer in Chinese since he could not speak that much Japanese already and by the serious tone Heihachi had used.

"Not worthy enough? I won't take an unworthy kid home with me… You want me to bring you back to the streets then?" asked Heihachi in Chinese once more in an even sterner tone.

"Huh, no! No! I… I am worthy! Otousama!" exclaimed Lee in a sudden panic.

Suddenly changing his attitude to a very cheerful and familiar one, Heihachi then began to slap Lee in the back while laughing and speaking once more in Japanese:

"Gahahaha! Good, that's what I want to hear, my boy! Otousama, not Mishima-Sama! That's for the rest of the world to call me like this! You're my son now!"

Lee tried to process what his new father just told him in Japanese. Apparently, Heihachi wanted to be called father and told him he was his son… Lee wished he understood everything already but with what he understood and his new father's cheerful attitude, at least he knew his father was happy, so he gave a shy smile to his adoptive father.

Heihachi slapped him in the back some more time while laughing and Lee almost got pushed on the table with the strength of the hits, despite Heihachi clearly not wanting to hurt him as he was laughing and looking at Lee with a cheerful gaze. Lee tried to keep his balance by grabbing the table as Heihachi added:

"The teacher told me you did well yesterday! That's good! You seem like a good learner! I'm proud of you, my boy!"

Lee understood that sentence and smiled again as his new father was complimenting him while giving him some more slaps in the back. He was glad to make his new father proud even if the slaps were a little rough to take.

"Sumi… Huh, Arigato", said Lee who almost mixed the words 'I am sorry' with the words 'thank you' with his nervousness.

Heihachi then got up from his chair and as he passed beside Lee, he slid his hand on Lee's head, tousling his hair in some kind of affective gesture.

"Now go eat your breakfast, boy. I must go."

Again, already? thought the young boy. Yet it probably made sense since Heihachi had a business… Beside, Lee knew he didn't have much time either since soon after his breakfast, the Japanese teacher would come to teach him. He would then learn more words to feel less nervous in front of his new father. Lee was eager to know more and be able to speak the language as soon as possible. He was nervous with Heihachi but his new father was in fact a very cheerful man. Lee wanted to please him next time by showing him how much he learned… So he ate then went to his course.

The course lasted for hours since it was very intensive and Lee once again went to bed without seeing his new foster father. But as he thought yesterday, the distrustful feeling was gone, he didn't feel so out of place anymore and he did begin to feel like this would be his new life… With that kind father, Heihachi Mishima… His parents may be gone in the wind but they put him in good hands now…


End file.
